Curtains and Windows is a collaborative text- and sound-based video triptych, using footage recorded at the Heygate Estate in Elephant & Castle, London SE1, three years before this forty-year old estate, once home to three-thousand people, was demolished in 2014 to make way for luxury housing.

In 2013, Bakker approached author David Rose, who had contributed to the anthology Still (Negative Press London, 2012), to write a story inspired by his video images of windows and curtains at the Heygate. Curtains is a monologue of a bitter architect, read by actor Francis Lee.

Researching the Heygate Estate, Bakker discovered the work of lecturer and sound artist Dr Will Montgomery (selvageflame.com), who had previously made field recordings there. He responded to the video images with a soundscape evoking the pain of the materials of the building.

Meeting two of the Heygate’s last residents, led Bakker to writing Windows, a story about a man coming to terms with losing both his partner and their home, a monologue inspired by the style of Rose’s Curtains. Voice-over artist Brian Robinson interpreted the text in 2017.

The three video works more or less use the same footage, but each work is ordered and edited to match the individual narrative, either in words or in sound.

Both monologues are included in the journal Confingo, issue 10, autumn/winter 2018, alongside screengrabs of the original videos. www.confingopublishing.uk